THE MIRACLE OF EAR WAX
(C)1997 Alan M. Schwartz
Dr. James Wightman of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, 1994 Virginia Scientist of the Year, presented an 04
November 1997 lecture "Oil Film on Water Surfaces - A Study of
Science and Technology, History, Ethics, and Feminism." He mixed
diethyl ether with water to form a saturated solution of the
former in the latter at room temperature, and introduced a source
of ignition... flames! He closed by securing a sample of cerumen
(ear wax) from his auditory labyrinth and touching it to one
corner of the fluid surface of the flaming pan. In the finest
tradition of insoluble Langmuir-Blodgett films spreading across a
hydraulic trough (Blodgett was Langmuir's wife; she had the idea
while doing dishes), the flames extinguished. What a difference
a single molecule-thick layer makes!
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was onto Dr.
Wightman like affective trauma counselors at an Oklahoma City
bombing. Was he authorized to monger biology in chemistry
lectures? Were there Material Safety Data Sheets for and warning
stickers on his ears? Is ear wax on the FDA Generally Recognized
as Safe list? Haz-Mat paid a $100K visit for safe disposal of
the remains. Their plastic buckets all carried International
Warning Orange stickers in Spanish to forbid children from
drowning in them. ("Aviso! Ninos pueden caer adentro de el
balde y ahogarse. Retire los ninos delos baldes aunque solamente
tengan un poco de agua.") Federal revenue agents imposted the
Carbon Tax on Everything, threatening to confiscate Dr.
Wightman's earlobes if it was not money up front. A jolly time
was had by all, and who cares about Dr. Wightman?
Environmentalists otherwise preoccupied with condemning progress
in its every form espied an end to water, CO2, dry chemical, and
other bastard technological spawn fire extinguishers threatening
fragile and endangered environments. Demonstrations were held!
Petitions were circulated! Legislation was drafted! Babies in
their cribs would be saved (and the Giant Flying Vampire Toad,
too, despite being threatened with extinction - which is
forever!) by the National Cerumen Crisis. All it required was
Federal subsidy and jackbooted State compassion. Hillary Ramrod
Clinton was very loud about it, Emergency Federal Day Care having
gone the way of the National Health Care Crisis.
Every home, apartment, hotel, and Bowery alley in America
received recycling bins for Q-Tips and paper clips. Highest
quality Mil-Spec aluminum-scandium alloy USSR ICBM missile skins
were salvaged and reworked at horrendous US taxpayer cost. Tens
of thousands of hours of NASA engineering CAD/CAM were devoted to
making the lid seal just so, just so NASA zero-g toilet engineers
could justify their annual productivity bonuses. Digging your
pinky into an ear and flipping the adherent result was a
mandatory $10,000 fine/10 years in prison sentence, no
possibility of parole.
While a few billion dollars pursued a worthy cause, that no
dollop of ear wax not be collected, processed, packaged, and
warehoused, private industry did not stand idly by. Oh no!
Recombinant DNA technology quickly fostered access to purely
giant synthetic ears transplanted onto cattle, and loaded with
ear wax. How the Animal Rights whiners did gnash their teeth!
No ears for steers! (A certain nuance about the fine points of
breeding steers rather diffused their indignation, the way a
rhinoceros urinates backwards in a broad horizontal fan.)
The BATF enjoyed an expanded mission statement. Rumors of
Appalachian juvenile ears brimming with ear wax destined for the
cerumen black market in Algiers lent urgency to a full scale
assault. Save the children! Injured and killed Federal agent
statistics mounted as they donned their SWAT gear and loaded
their guns. Armed cotton swab patrols marched through city
streets and battered down suspicious suburban doors. Combat
otolaryngologists were drafted, trained, equipped, and deployed.
No tympanum was safe from Washington's trespass.
In the meanwhile Dr. Wightman was caught short for a boffo ending
to his lecture. He reviewed his options for Langmuir-Blodgett
deposition: A set of low-melting, long, thin, hydrophobic
molecules with polar functionality at one end. The grease waves
in the air as the polar head digs into the water, yin and yang,
and an ordered bipolar film marches across surface tension atop
the water. His audience was typically teenagers and, though the
aesthetics were nothing to shout about, expressed sebum with its
oxidized cork was as good as cerumen, and even allowed audience
participation. Why, he'd call it the Comedo of Errors!
OSHA was on him like hebephiles attending the evidence phase at a
McMartin Pre-School trial.